Further reflections on Wednesday's session (29 Oct)

In yesterday's post, I made the broad distinction between an approach to Catholic teaching which basically trusted in the Church's methodology and simply asked for an explanation of how that methodology worked, and an approach which sought a deeper, critical engagement with that methodology. In sum, I left the post with the question as to why, particularly in the modern West, even Catholics often seek firm justifications of Catholic methodology before using it in a way that they wouldn't, for example, subject secularized methodologies to a similar deep probing before using them.

But let's, for the sake of discussion, engage with that deeper probing of Catholic methodology in doing, say, social teaching or, more generally, moral theology. I think the first thing to say here are we shouldn't underestimate the nature of the task. Part of the process of secularization in modernity is to reduce religion to merely an aspect of life, rather like a hobby. It therefore becomes very easy to interpret the justification of Catholicism along the lines of a justification of stamp collecting: something you could imagine being done in a half hour lecture followed by polite questioning. But if you take seriously Catholicism's own self-understanding, the question of justification becomes less one of a particular, narrow aspect of life, but rather one of everything, not just of our supernatural end (our life after death with God) but also of our natural end (what it is to flourish during our earthly life). If you add to that the observation that, discussions even just about fairly narrow religious (or philosophical) questions have rumbled on throughout the ages with smart people on both sides, something of the size and incompletability of the task becomes obvious.

That said, I think there are two aspects of Catholic methodology that have been subject to particular probing during the course so far. First, there is the clarity of it. How easy is it to know what the 'Catholic view' really is? Secondly, there is the rightness of it. Given one knows what is being said, how is the truth of any particular claim to be assessed?

Let's take the clarity first. There is an ordinary, everyday level of teaching in the Catholic Church which is extremely easy to access. If you want to know what the Catholic view is about many things, you can look at officially published documents such as the Catechism or the Compendium of Social Doctrine, or even Papal teaching documents, and find out relatively quickly. It won't sort out every worry you might conceivably have (as was pointed out in the last session, some details of (eg) predestination have been deliberately left open by Papal teaching) but it will give clear answers on a great deal that other churches don't articulate. It is at this ordinary, everyday level that most Catholics live most of the time and all of us live some of the time. (The very fact that we can have a course on Catholic social teaching is evidence of the existence of a (relatively) coherent and well articulated body of teaching in this area.)

The existence of what might be called this pre-critical level of engagement with Catholic teaching is a consequence of what I take to be the fundamental claim of Catholicism: that Christ left a Church and not a book. If we all had to be theologians to achieve salvation, we'd be in serious trouble! So the first thing I'd note is that, on the everyday level of finding out what the Church teaches, there exists a body of teaching that it far clearer and more readily accessed than in most other mainstream religious bodies. But what of the rightness of that teaching? Assuming that we accept the existence of its clarity, what if we begin to worry about its rightness?

It is at this point that I think Catholic teaching displays another of its strengths: its intellectual depth. In essence, I think this is the point that Pope Benedict was making in his Regensburg lecture. If you wish to pursue critical engagement with Catholic teaching, that path both exists and is encouraged: it is possible to be critical catholically. So, for example, if I was prompted to move from that 'pre-critical' level of engagement with Catholic teaching that I have just described, I might move from the Catechism to the underlying teaching documents, and from the underlying teaching documents to the theology of the Doctors of the Church such as St Thomas Aquinas and then, perhaps, to the vast secondary literature that discusses him and the vast preceding philosophical and theological literature from which he emerged. (Given the role of grace and the virtues in our intellectual life, I would also be regularly praying and examining my conscience.)

Now there is no abstract guarantee what the results of such a critical process will be: as I have emphasized over the course, there is a strong emphasis on the pursuit of truth and love in freedom particularly in recent Catholic teaching. I do not know (and the Church does not claim to know) precisely what salvation looks like in every individual case. But there is sufficient clarity to suspect that some processes of critical engagement with the teaching are very hard to describe as Catholic. For example, someone who scoffed at the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, who refused to ask Mary for guidance and protection, who abjured the intellectual inheritance of Aquinas in favour of Nietzsche, and who dismissed the authority of bishops to teach with any sort of authority might still claim to be Catholic, but it would be a claim that I would find very hard to understand let alone accept as plausible. Of course, many examples of 'dissenting' theologians are much less clear cut than that. Equally, some are much clearer: one simple (and helpful) question is often simply, 'Do you regard yourself as a Catholic?'

In sum, Catholic teaching and the process of Catholic critical engagement with that teaching is (relatively) clear. It is of course entirely open to someone to ask why we should be so interested in pursuing a particularly Catholic path rather than a path to truth simpliciter. Two responses to that. In the first place, that is an odd (even if not impossible) question for a Catholic to ask. At the least, I think I would be asking myself what it meant to identify as a Catholic and yet wonder what merit there was in thinking as a Catholic. Secondly, any non Catholic path of criticism will itself be making methodological assumptions which need to be subject to as much critical examination as Catholic claims. In many cases, the challenge to Catholicism in the West is from approaches which have been subject to far less critical examination than Catholicism itself.

In my next reflection on Wednesday's session, I'll turn to consider an approach which does directly challenge the content of Catholic social teaching and which was raised in the discussion: Marxism.

Reflections on yesterday's session (29 Oct)

A lively discussion again last night!

First -and doubtless most important- the above photo shows the switchover from driving on the left hand side of the road to the right hand side of the road in Sweden which I mentioned last night as a symbol of the need for the co-ordinating activity of government. (I'm still not sure whether I'm more impressed by the disorder in the picture or the relative orderliness of the change!)

Turning to matters of more substance, I think there were two issues that struck me particularly:

1) Yet again, we ended up discussing the applications of Catholic social theory to the Church itself.

2) The challenge of Catholic social theory to Marxism.

I'm going to need more than one post to deal with these, so I'll tackle 1) in a couple of posts beginning today and then post (as soon as I find time!) on 2).

As I said at the beginning of the course, the teaching of Catholic social teaching in this sort of class is a new venture both for the Institute and me, so I expected some surprises over the weeks. One thing I'm not sure whether or not I expected was the constant push for reflection on the authority of the Church. From one perspective, it is a surprise since the course is directed less at the Church itself and more at society in general. Moreover, the bulk of social teaching is more about the natural law -ie that part of Catholic reflection based on reasoning about human nature rather than revelation about human beings' supernatural end. So for those reasons, I hadn't expected quite such a regular interest in justifying the Church's teaching authority. On the other hand, I'm fairly realistic about both general attitudes to authority and to that of the Church in particular, so, from that perspective I'm not at all surprised!

But given that the issues have been raised, I don't want to dodge them. I think there are two sorts (or perhaps better, 'levels') of challenge to the authority of the Church in respect of Catholic social teaching. First, there is the 'common-or-garden' level based on the perfectly reasonable observation that much of what the Church seems to say about society in general doesn't seem to be applied to the Church. For example, Centesimus annus (here) 46 states:

'The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.'

And yet, the Church isn't a democracy. So isn't the Church just failing to apply its own teachings consistently?

That sort of challenge is really a request for further information and is relatively quickly answered. In essence, the Church isn't the same sort of body as a state. Just as it would be wrong to apply the above paragraph to a family (or even a school or university) a fortiori it would be wrong to apply it to the Body of Christ. (A fuller explanation is provided in my previous post here.)

There is, however, another type of challenge. The former type is exercised within the assumption of the everyday trustworthiness of the Church: to ask the above question is to pursue a deeper understanding of the Church's teachings, not to challenge them. (This can be seen by reflecting on the fact that it is settled quickly by reference to explanatory manuals such as the Catechism or Compendium of Social Doctrine.) The second type of challenge is a deeper and more critical one, and questions the reliability of those common-or-garden explanations.

Now, I'm certainly not going to reject the propriety of that second sort of challenge: it's perfectly reasonable for someone who doubts the authority of the Church (whether a non-Catholic or a Catholic) to ask those sort of questions. But it is important to note that it is a different sort of challenge from the first sort. To take an analogy from a different field, it is one thing to teach science and another thing to teach philosophy of science. In (say) a physics class, the general trustworthiness of the university system and experimental method is normally not challenged (certainly at a very deep level) within those classes. Any request for clarification of methodology is simply that: a request for clarification on how to use that methodology rather than a critical challenge to it. On the other hand, challenges to scientific methodology and critical questioning of it are meat and drink to a philosophy of science class.

In sum, certainly in other academic subjects, there is a broad distinction to be made between those classes which assume a certain methodology and then seek to apply it, and those classes which encourage reflection on the methodology. Moreover, I'd add that it's a feature of the second sort of class that justifications of methodology are never entirely complete or satisfactory: I can't think of a single subject (certainly of any academic weight) where you might suggest that you could sort out the second sort of class in a clear cut manner, so that, methodology settled, you could then proceed in absolute certainty to apply that fully justified methodology.

So one way of responding to the 'deep' challenge to the authority of Church teachings is to ask, why is this deep challenge, suspicious of the authority and methodology, more pressing in the case of the Church than it is in the case of other intellectual pursuits and academic subjects? Why must we settle the authority of the Church in a way far more demanding of greater clarity and certainty than we accept for other subjects? We do not demand  the placing of literary theory on an absolutely firm and completely convincing basis before applying that theory, say, to Chaucer. Why do we demand complete certainty in authority from Catholicism before considering the application of its teaching to society?

I think the rough lines of an explanation here are clear: we accept the normal, secular understanding of the world without any deep (second level) probing and, by uncritically adopting that secular standard, Catholicism apparently stands wanting in authority. But why do we take more on trust from the surrounding secular world than we are willing to take on trust from the (our?) Church? I don't think there is, frankly, a good answer to that if we identify ourselves as Catholics.

To sum up this first post, I think there is good reason to take the claims to authority of the Church on trust and, focusing on the application of Catholic methodology, to judge its success or failure on how well that methodology succeeds in illuminating society. That isn't to deny the possibility of another (second level) enquiry about the deeper aspects of those claims to authority, but it is to note that this is a different sort of enquiry, one as different from Catholic social teaching as philosophy of science is from science.

All that said, I'm not one to seek to wriggle out from a challenge. So, if one does want to pursue that second level, deeper, more critical challenge to authority, what response might be made?

Watch this space...

Thinking ahead to this Wednesday (29 October)

This Wednesday's session will be on, 'The social nature of the human person: politics, the State and the role of the Church.'

I suppose that one of the key differences between Catholic social teaching and the modern 'commonsense' view is the role of the State. There is a (non-Catholic) tendency to think of the State as the source of all legal authority which is to be contrasted with the Catholic natural law tradition that argues a) that the authority of positive (ie State) law is derived from natural law; and b) that there are intermediate bodies (both the family and the associations of civil society) that have a natural right to exist rather than simply a right devolved by the State.

So what then is the role of the State? (Do we really need a State?) Yves Simon  (here) discusses the need for the State under two headings:

a) Substitutional. In certain circumstances, the State may act as substitute for the citizens' own decisions. This in turn takes two main forms:
  i) Permanent substitution: if the citizen body is permanently unable to make decisions which achieve the common good, then the government should do it for them. (This is very much behind Plato's idea that government should permanently be run by experts (philosophers!).)
 ii) Temporary substitution: if the citizen body is temporarily unable to make decisions which achieve the common good, then the government should do it for them but with a view to educating them to be able to run the country.

b) Unifying. Even if you imagine a society made up of entirely wise people, you would still need a government to decide which (of a number of possible good aims) that society should in fact aim at. As Simon puts it:

Even in the smallest and most closely united community, unity of action cannot be taken for granted; it has to be caused, and, if it is to be steady, it has to be assured by a steady cause. Here are a man and his wife -- both are good and clever, but one thinks that the summer vacation should be spent on the seashore, and the other would rather spend it in the hills. If they remain divided, one goes to the seashore, the other to the hills, and common life ceases temporarily. It would come to an end if a similar divergence concerned an issue of lasting significance.

Questions to think about:

a) What goods should a government aim at? (Are there as many different goods as there are individuals with opinions?)

b) Do we need experts to recognize (some? all of?) those goods?

c) Is democracy a good form of government? Why? (And is our modern Western democracy a good form of democracy?)

d) What role should the Church play in thinking through answers to the above?

Look forward to the discussions on Wednesday!

Reflections on last night's session (22 October)

Once more, many thanks for braving the increasingly dark evenings and for all the contributions to the discussions!

As I said, I think in many ways consideration of civil society (and the family) is one of the most important elements of Catholic social teaching: we have a tendency in the modern world to think solely in terms of the State and individuals; and even when we think of other associations, we tend to regard them as creations of the State rather than having a separate and independent source of authority for their existence (in broad terms, that of human nature).

A few specific points that occurred to me:

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a) The issue of subsidiarity and the exercise of authority in the Church came up: roughly, given the emphasis on the transfer of power down to the lowest level, why isn't power in the Church transferred downwards?

I set this question aside in the session simply because I didn't want to refocus the discussion from the general principle of subsidiarity in civil society to a specific (and different) case. However, we will have a chance to return to it if people want, both in the session on the State (which will include some consideration of the Church) and in the final 'open' session where we can pick up any topic that is of interest. For the moment, I suppose all I would say is that there seem to me to be a number of relevant considerations here:

i) First, it's entirely possible that the Church in some areas (and certainly some specific parishes in some places) doesn't always get it right! It would be highly implausible to argue that it does (and certainly it's no part of Catholic doctrine that it does).

ii) Secondly, there is the issue of the appropriate level to which power and authority is passed: as discussed, subsidiarity isn't the principle that authority is passed down to the lowest level regardless of appropriateness: some authority is appropriately exercised at higher, central levels. (And that of course leads to consideration of what appropriateness involves in specific cases.)

iii) Thirdly, unlike the State (which is legitimized by the authority of the people -ie authority proceeds (roughly) upwards)- the Church 's hierarchy possesses authority directly from God. (That certainly doesn't mean that power can't be passed downwards, but it does mean that, for at least some aspects of the hierarchy's exercise of authority, unlike that of the people in the case of civil power, there is no right to that authority.)

Contrast:

Civil authority:

1) Suarez: Book III, ch2, Defensio fidei Catholicae: [link here]

For, first, the supreme civil power viewed in itself, is indeed given directly by God to men gathered into a perfect political community, not in truth in consequence of any peculiar and quasi-positive institution, or by gift altogether distinct from the production of such nature, but through the natural consequence by the force of the first creation of it, and thus by the force of such gift this power is not in one person, nor in a peculiar congregation of many, but in the whole perfect people or body of the community. 

[...]

From these considerations finally it is concluded that no king or monarch has or has had (according to ordinary law) directly from God or from divine institution a political principality, but by the medium of human will and institution. This is the distinguished axiom of theology, not for derision, as the king proposed, but in truth, because rightly understood it is most true and especially necessary for understanding the purposes and limits of civil power.

2) Compendium Of Social Doctrine, 395 [link here]

 The subject of political authority is the people considered in its entirety as those who have sovereignty. In various forms, this people transfers the exercise of sovereignty to those whom it freely elects as its representatives, but it preserves the prerogative to assert this sovereignty in evaluating the work of those charged with governing and also in replacing them when they do not fulfil their functions satisfactorily. Although this right is operative in every State and in every kind of political regime, a democratic form of government, due to its procedures for verification, allows and guarantees its fullest application.


Ecclesial authority:

Catechism, 880-2: [link here]


When Christ instituted the Twelve, "he constituted [them] in the form of a college or permanent assembly, at the head of which he placed Peter, chosen from among them." Just as "by the Lord's institution, St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constitute a single apostolic college, so in like fashion the Roman Pontiff, Peter's successor, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another."

The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock" of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock. "The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of apostles united to its head." This pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church's very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope.

The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, "is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful." "For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered."

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b) After the session I was asked the very good question as to whether there was any real evidence that the associations of civil society were actually under threat in modernity. (So, eg, I mentioned that it was more and more difficult to get membership of political parties or the scouts.)

This strikes me as a good point because it does remind us that we need to separate out what is essential to Catholic social teaching as what is merely a (plausible) application of it. It is essential to Catholic social teaching that civil society flourishes: if human beings are not able to form the sort of intermediate associations that we discussed, the full flourishing of their nature is impaired. But while it is essential to the teaching that civil society should continue and be facilitated, it certainly isn't essential to the teaching that (in any particular society or age) this or that civil society is actually under threat. For example, although books such as Putnam's Bowling Alone (see previous post) do seem to me to provide convincing evidence that there is a problem here in the West, it may well be that what we are seeing is simply a change in the nature of civil society (perhaps from participation in bowling clubs to participation in (say) online gaming). There's no magic solution to this other than the exercise of practical wisdom (prudentia): reasonable disagreement about the nature of social problems and the solution to them is not eradicated by the existence of Catholic social teaching. Catholics should be concerned about the survival of civil society. But precisely how that concern should be manifested on any particular occasion is not something that can be revealed by that teaching: there we simply have to do our best to discern both problems and solutions.

I'll post in a few days with thoughts about the next session!

Looking forward to the next session: 22 Oct

One of the abiding themes of Catholic social teaching has been subsidiarity. As the Compendium says (s185 here):

It is impossible to promote the dignity of the person without showing concern for the family, groups, associations, local territorial realities; in short, for that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sports-oriented, recreational, professional and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth. This is the realm of civil society, understood as the sum of the relationships between individuals and intermediate social groupings, which are the first relationships to arise and which come about thanks to “the creative subjectivity of the citizen”.

This week we'll be looking at civil society, used in the sense of those intermediate bodies and institutions that exist between the State and the individual. In totalitarian societies such as Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, these intermediate communities were reduced to mere tools of the State, while in modern capitalism, there appears to be a gradual reduction of such community life in favour of individualism.

Questions to think about:

a) Do you think the community life of civil society has changed over your lifetime? If so, has this been for the better or worse?

b) Does it matter? Can't small communities be rather oppressive at times? Isn't there a welcome freedom in individualism?

If you've got time, you could have a look at this interview with Robert Putnam. (Here.) Putnam's book, Bowling Alone, is a classic study of the decline of the sort of social networks involved in civil society.

Message from the Synod on the Family

The Synod on the Family in Rome has presented its message on 'the pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelisation'. Some interesting stuff particularly in view of our recent discussions:


There is also the evening light behind the windowpanes in the houses of the cities, in modest residences of suburbs and villages, and even in mere shacks, which shines out brightly, warming bodies and souls. This light—the light of a wedding story—shines from the encounter between spouses: it is a gift, a grace expressed, as the Book of Genesis says, when the two are “face to face” as equal and mutual helpers. The love of man and woman teaches us that each needs the other in order to be truly self. Each remains different from the other that opens self and is revealed in the reciprocal gift. It is this that the bride of the Song of Songs sings in her canticle: “My beloved is mine and I am his… I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”.
This authentic encounter begins with courtship, a time of waiting and preparation. It is realized in the sacrament where God sets his seal, his presence, and grace. This path also includes sexual relationship, tenderness, intimacy, and beauty capable of lasting longer than the vigour and freshness of youth. Such love, of its nature, strives to be forever to the point of laying down one’s life for the beloved. In this light conjugal love, which is unique and indissoluble, endures despite many difficulties. It is one of the most beautiful of all miracles and the most common.
This love spreads through fertility and generativity, which involves not only the procreation of children but also the gift of divine life in baptism, their catechesis, and their education. It includes the capacity to offer life, affection, and values—an experience possible even for those who have not been able to bear children. 

Full text here.

Reflecting on last Wednesday's meeting (15 October)

Thank you for the liveliest discussion yet! May there be many more!!

A few thoughts (not in any particular order):

1) On the course being challenging. Although I said a lot of what I wanted to say about this during the evening, I'd also want to add that it's intended to be very much a course you can access on different levels. Certainly, I do think that the intellectual life of the Church in Scotland could do with upping its game and I'd like to think that the course, but more importantly the Institute as a whole, is part of that attempt to bring the full riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition out into the open. If you've got plenty of time and the inclination, you'll find many resources here and much thought provoking material to take that exploration further.

But I also want it to be a course that can be skimmed (or dipped into!). Just by turning up on Wednesdays and participating in the class, I hope that you'd get quite a lot out of it, even if that's mostly: 'There's a lot here that I can have a look at when (if) I finally get the time.' The Church and its intellectual tradition is much bigger than any one of us: we're all dipping into it in our short lives.

2) Celibacy. Oddly, I hadn't envisaged the conversation taking the turn it had on celibacy! (I'd really just intended to talk about the goods of marriage!) When comparing celibacy and married life, I think the key point (as others made rather better than I did!) is to note the goodness of both. As the Catechism says (s.2349 link here):


' "People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single." Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence:
'" There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others. . . . This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church." '

There has undoubtedly been a change in emphasis in the Church's teachings over the years which has led to a greater understanding of how sanctification can be pursued through the married state as well as celibacy. I'd be happy to leave it there for the purposes of this course, but, as I did mention on Wednesday, there has been a strong view in the tradition that celibacy is a more direct path to our supernatural end. Aquinas for example says:

' I answer that, According to Jerome... i) the error of Jovinian consisted in holding virginity not to be preferable to marriage. This error is refuted above all by the example of Christ Who both chose a virgin for His mother, and remained Himself a virgin, and by the teaching of the Apostle who (1 Cor. 7) counsels virginity as the greater good. It is also refuted by reason, both because a Divine good takes precedence of a human good, and because the good of the soul is preferable to the good of the body, and again because the good of the contemplative life is better than that of the active life. Now virginity is directed to the good of the soul in respect of the contemplative life, which consists in thinking "on the things of God" ..., whereas marriage is directed to the good of the body, namely the bodily increase of the human race, and belongs to the active life, since the man and woman who embrace the married life have to think "on the things of the world," as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 7:34). Without doubt therefore virginity is preferable to conjugal continence.'

(STh IIa IIae q152 a4 link here)

I think my chasing that difficult issue was slightly going off on a tangent so far as this course is concerned though: for the normal working of society, it's the goodness of marriage that is more important.

3) Complementarity. We still didn't really get to deal with this completely! I'm going to take that as a sign from the Holy Spirit and move on! I've posted up the material on this for this week and last week if anyone wants to pursue it further. I think a fair summary of the case for  the importance of a woman and a man at the centre of the family would be:

i) from the point of view of the procreative purpose of marriage, first, its biological necessity (!) and also the importance of a female and male presence in bringing up children (although noting of course that this ideal isn't always possible).

ii) from the point of view of the unitive end (ie being good for the spouses) that engagement with the distinct sensibilities of the other sex is part of the process of sanctification (roughly, men are made better men by women, and women are made better women by men).

Phew!

I'll be back with further thoughts for next week (on civil society -ie those bodies intermediate between the family and the state) before Wednesday.

Thinking ahead to Wednesday (15 October: Meeting 4)

Since we didn't complete the discussion of the family last week -and, in particular, didn't really get on to discuss what I suppose is probably a key worry about Catholic social teaching: that it imposes a particular shape on the family (one man, one woman in a lifetime exclusive commitment for the raising of children)- we'll focus on that this week. We can then postpone week 4 until 5, and combine weeks 5 and 6 to form a discussion of politics and the role of the Church. This gives us:


Week 4) The family (continued).

Week 5) The social nature of the human person: civil society and the role of associations intermediate between family and State.

Week 6) The social nature of the human person: politics, the State and the role of the Church.

Key issues it might be worth thinking about before Wednesday:

a) What follows ethically from biology and our physiology? It takes a male/female couple to produce a new individual by way of sexual intercourse: does this biological fact have any implications for what follows ethically (particularly thinking about the shape of the family)?

b) A related question: women and men are certainly physically sexually dimorphic (ie we are built differently!). Given that physical complementarity (ie the need for both to come together to produce offspring), what about psychological (or even ethical) complementarity? (Do we need each other in deeper ways?)

c) Are families just about love? (What's important is that the members of a family love each other rather than that they are are certain types of persons.)

It might be worth reading this article by Rod Dreher before Wednesday (link here). The questions that it prompts me to ask would include:

i) Given that we have to see sex as part of a greater (theological) whole, are there elements of Christian teaching that suggest a traditional emphasis on procreation and sexual difference actually fits badly into this greater whole?

ii) Does Catholic teaching in this area depend on (revealed) theological principles rather than natural law? (Which would suggest that the Christian worldview on sex would not be accepted by a culture which did not also share those revealed principles.)

Look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

Reflections from last night (8 October)

Some excellent discussion last night: thank you!

As I said, we really didn't get to cover the issue of sexual complementarity (which has come to prominence both as part of the Theology of the Body and as an explanation as to why the family should take a particular shape (ie one woman; one man) ). We'll have a go at that next week!

One element that did figure quite prominently in last night's discussion was this idea of a 'hermeneutic of continuity'. (This phrase is usually attributed to Benedict XVI in his Christmas address 22 December 2005. (Link here.)) In short, it is possible to understand some twentieth century developments in Catholic theology (particularly Vatican II) in two ways: either interpreting them as a radical change from the past ( a hermeneutics (ie way of interpreting) of rupture) or in continuity with past theology.

It should be clear by now that I'm a hermeneutic of continuity man myself!! So, in my understanding, Catholic theology has simply developed and deepened through events such as Vatican II, rather than radically changed. But, as one very good question put it last night: why does this matter? Clearly some things have changed: we don't burn Protestants any more (!). So why the desperation to cling onto a narrative of continuity rather than perhaps adopt a more honest admission that there has been a radical change?

Part of my answer to this would be that it does depend on the precise meaning of 'radical' change. In one sense, there has been great change -that's clear. So would it matter if we adopted a hermeneutic of rupture? I'd make two replies.

The first -and perhaps least important- is that it would change the way we used (say) pre-Vatican II material. Rather than going (say) to a thirteenth century Doctor of the Church such as Aquinas and expecting to find there the same theology as we have now, we would have to go without that assumption. I think that certainly would be a profound change both in the way we used materials and also in the attitude we have to the (intellectual) communion we have with those Doctors. But to accept that is of course not to answer the objection that such a change is both necessary and welcome...

The second -and more important reply- is that it would alter the nature of the teaching authority of the Church. There is no evading the fact that the Catholic Church has -and still does- make very strong claims for itself. Here, for example, are the relevant paragraphs from the Catechism on the teaching authority of the Church on morality (link here):


2032 The Church, the "pillar and bulwark of the truth," "has received this solemn command of Christ from the apostles to announce the saving truth." "To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls."

2033 The Magisterium of the Pastors of the Church in moral matters is ordinarily exercised in catechesis and preaching, with the help of the works of theologians and spiritual authors. Thus from generation to generation, under the aegis and vigilance of the pastors, the "deposit" of Christian moral teaching has been handed on, a deposit composed of a characteristic body of rules, commandments, and virtues proceeding from faith in Christ and animated by charity. Alongside the Creed and the Our Father, the basis for this catechesis has traditionally been the Decalogue which sets out the principles of moral life valid for all men.

2034 The Roman Pontiff and the bishops are "authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be believed and put into practice." The ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him teach the faithful the truth to believe, the charity to practice, the beatitude to hope for.

2035 The supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the charism of infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine Revelation; it also extends to all those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed.

2036 The authority of the Magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the natural law, because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is necessary for salvation. In recalling the prescriptions of the natural law, the Magisterium of the Church exercises an essential part of its prophetic office of proclaiming to men what they truly are and reminding them of what they should be before God.

2037 The law of God entrusted to the Church is taught to the faithful as the way of life and truth. the faithful therefore have the right to be instructed in the divine saving precepts that purify judgment and, with grace, heal wounded human reason. They have the duty of observing the constitutions and decrees conveyed by the legitimate authority of the Church. Even if they concern disciplinary matters, these determinations call for docility in charity.

In essence, the Church is claiming the same authority as Christ in Matthew 7:29: 'For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes' (ie as an authoritative source, not merely as an interpreter). If the Church has completely changed its mind on important matters of theology and morality (rather than deepening its understanding or changing the application of principles because of changed circumstances) this undermines its claim to such a unique authority.

Of course, much more to be said on both sides here! (Whenever isn't there?) But given the Church does seem clearly to make unique claims about its teaching authority, are those claims to be rejected as simply false (as most non-Catholics would) or can they be interpreted as somehow claiming a unique authority which is compatible with radical discontinuity (even contradiction) in teaching? In rejecting both of those possibilities, the supporters of a hermeneutic of continuity are accepting the unique claims of the Church to teaching authoritatively, and understanding that to mean that the Church does not change its teaching even when it deepens it.


Further reading:

Cardinal Newman: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. (Link here.)

Daniel Lattier: 'The orthodox rejection of doctrinal development' (link here). (The Eastern Orthodox Churches (unlike the Catholic Church) are commonly held to reject any idea of the development of doctrine (rather than simply its preservation). The author argues that in fact there is an acceptance of some forms of development in Eastern Orthodoxy and that Newman's own understanding of development is compatible with these.)

Pascendi Dominici Gregis: Pius X's condemnation of Modernism (which includes condemnation of the idea of doctrine's evolution).  (link here).

Thinking ahead to session 3 (Wednesday 8 Oct)

As I mentioned last week, in  many ways the individual was the wrong place to start our account of Catholic social teaching: unlike modern (non-Catholic) social contact theories which tend to portray the formation of the state as a matter of individuals coming together to form a state by agreement, Catholic approaches tend to regard the household as the building block of society.

So one of the things I suspect we'll be talking about this Wednesday is why Catholic social teaching starts off with this emphasis (and is it right to do so?). Another important question is what do we mean by a family or household? We've just been through the question of legislation about same sex marriage in which there was clear, official Catholic opposition to the proposal in Scotland. In part, this opposition was based on the idea that the man/woman/children unit was natural and thus not something the state should interfere in. (This raises the question of subsidiarity: what is the power of the state over entities within its territory? Should power be retained (not devolved) to 'lower level' institutions such as the family?) But it also raised the question of the makeup of that household unit: even if Catholic social teaching was right about its importance in society, is there one model of the household, and, in particular, does that model have to be based on a female/male couple in a lifelong commitment? (And if it does, how does that model reflect the reality that such a unit is increasingly uncommon?) To deal with such questions, we're going to have to address traditional Catholic claims about the procreative and educative function of the household, together with the issue of the role of differences between the sexes in human flourishing.

Key questions to have a think about:

a) How important is the family to society?
b) What is a family? Is there any restriction to its shape? (And if so, why?)

Reading:

You could try St John Paul II's Familiaris consortio (link here) but it's long and densely written. Short excerpts from relevant teaching documents on the family can be found here.
Chapter 5 of the Compendium of Social Doctrine on the Family can be found here.

Reflections on last night (1 October: meeting 2)

Again, thank you for an enjoyable session last night!

A couple of reflections on the discussions:

a) Evangelization. One of the things I particularly like about Catholicism is that no one ever tried to convert me (at least in any obvious way). On the other hand, I've been approached by who knows how many other groups of one ideology or other who want to convince me to sign up to their particular understanding of the world.

Now this reticence does have its bad side: in part because Scottish Catholics in particular have learned to keep their heads down in an environment that, in the not so recent past, was extremely hostile, I sometimes think we are too reticent about what we believe. But I think there are two good reasons which might explain the lack of apparent effort:

i) You don't get anywhere by bludgeoning people. If we take seriously the claim I made last night that the emphasis on truth and love in achieving our supernatural end (ie the beatific vision of God) militates against the imposition of the good life by the State, I think it's also true that (in the majority of cases) going up to a stranger and asking if they're saved also doesn't work. (It's a bit like trying to find a boy/girl friend by slipping notes to strangers and asking if they'll go out with you: it might work on occasions, but usually you'll just get a reputation as a bit creepy!)

ii) Being 'saved' isn't just a decision. Some non-Catholic Christians do think (or at least seem to think) of salvation as just an event: you are asked if you want to accept God; you say yes and accept God. End of story. Instead, Catholics think of being saved as a process which ends in the Beatific Vision of God: both God's grace and our co-operation with that grace are required for that process to succeed. (And that process may well involve a period of post-mortem cleansing in Purgatory.)

From this perspective, the sort of discussions we are having are part of that process: again, if we think of the pursuit of God as characterized by truth and love, a free pursuit of truth and understanding is likely to be rather more important an element in sanctification than a brief exchange on a doorstep.

I'm saying all this because I suppose I do wrestle with the practical implications of this every day when teaching philosophy in a secular environment but also in these classes. In one sense, I never think of myself as evangelizing: I'm not trying to convert anyone to Catholicism even in these classes which are explicitly Catholic (at least in the sense that they are about Catholicism even if we are not all Catholics!). I'm merely concerned to try and pursue truth (and goodness and beauty). On the other hand, I do think (and hope) that such a pursuit does lead (in principle even if not always in fact) to Catholicism. (Whether any of this is the right attitude is of course another question!)

Reading I've found useful in this area (but I'm certainly not pretending to a complete understanding here!):

Council of Trent, Sixth Session: On Justification [link here]
Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification [link here]
Garrigou-Lagrange: The Three Ages of the Interior Life (a book by perhaps the most eminent neo-Thomist of the twentieth century: chIII article III deals with the relationship between the effects of grace (the infused virtues) and the virtues acquired by our own efforts. [Link here.]

b) Disagreement. Sticking with this emphasis on the pursuit of God as understood as characterized by truth and love, I see no reason to expect that such a pursuit shouldn't be aided by argument and disagreement. I think of Catholic social teaching as really Catholic political philosophy, and it's absurd to think of philosophy as pursued without some sort of argument and disagreement. I'll quote the Dominican, Timothy Radcliffe here:

'The conviction which I explore in this letter to the Order is that a life of study is one of the ways in which we may grow in the love which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1Cor. 13:7)

[...]

'In part it is because we are marked by a culture which has lost confidence that study is a worthwhile activity and which doubts that debate can bring us to the truth for which we long. If our century has been so marked by violence it is surely partly because it has lost confidence in our ability to attain the truth together.

[...]

'We can never build community unless we dare to argue with each other. I must stress, as so often, the importance of debate, argument, the struggle to understand.'

[Extracts from: Radcliffe: 'The wellspring of hope' (link here).]